Lakes fill up, city has water to last another year: BMC

If you were worried that the current dry spell might lead to water cuts, here's some good news for you. Sujit Mahamulkar reports.

If you were worried that the current dry spell might lead to water cuts, here's some good news for you.

Laying the city's water woes to rest, officials from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), on Wednesday, said the lakes supplying water to Mumbai have enough stock to last for the next ten months, that is till June 2012, when the next monsoon arrives.

In order to ensure that no water cuts are imposed throughout the year, the city requires a total of 13 lakh million litres in all its six lakes - Tulsi, Modak Sagar, Tansa, Vihar, Upper Vaitarna and Bhatsa.

According to civic officials, the total stock in the lakes stands at 10.25 lakh million litres. With a little over a month to go for the monsoon, they hope the deficit will be made up for, particularly since catchment areas are mostly located in Thane, where the monsoon lasts till September.

Of the six lakes, Modak Sagar and Tulsi have already crossed their overflow levels. Tansa and Upper Vaitarna are just a metre below the overflow mark and Vihar is a metre-and-a-half away from its full supply. Presently, there have been few spells of rainfall almost every day and in the last 24 hours, the six lakes received between 6 mm and 39 mm of rainfall.

The situation this year is better when compared to the last, when the water stock stood at 9.4 lakh million litres.

"The current stock will last up to June next year, so there will be no need to impose water cuts till next monsoon," said an official from the civic water department, on condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to talk to the media.

However, Ramesh Bambale, a hydraulic engineer from the BMC said on cautious note, "The present water stock is satisfactory but we still have to wait till September end to conduct a fresh review."

Mumbai receives 3,400 million litres of water daily (MLD) as against the demand of 4,200 MLD.